Hot Rods Official 1959 Chevy Apache Build Thread

so after fighting one carriage bolt ALL night... even with the assistance of the fiance... I Finally got everything where it should be.......... So now tomorrow I am going to pull everything off and start the process of clear coating this wood after a proper sanding of course.... More to come soon.

 

Well with the help of my fiance my wood is now glossed

After two days worth of block sanding, and after arguing back and forth with whether or not to transport it to a friends house that has more room, I decided to try and do it here to see how it will work. So far so good. Here are some pictures.

 

are you countersinking for your off-set washers?

 

already countersank.. sunk.. sinked...long story short... it's done

 

looking good. thanks for the motivation. Im working on a 59 Apache truck. there times i want to rush and put it back together but i have to take my time so i can do it right. i took it apart and working on it starting from the frame. 1st time doing it.

 

Thanks for the kind words Israel Casarez. I know the feeling; I was sitting in the drivers seat tonight admiring my work (it may not be great work compared to most people, but I am proud of it) and all I want to do is take it to a car show to hear someone in person say "cool truck" or "its ugly, but its nice"... either would do!

Hard work pays off man, so keep on it. I could have had this bed back together, but I wanted to make it look nice, since the beds are one of the main focal points, so that is why I am taking two weeks instead of a couple days.

And to answer any questions you may have... I was still making vroom vroom noises, even though its completely drivable lol

 

So the bottom of the bed was no comparison to the top. The bottom they don't bother finishing, so the planar marks could easily be seen every inch or so... but the tops were fantastic. I want to finish it all and put it back together already

 

And I broke the tach out of the box, calibrated it and figured out where I want to put it... So I need to head to the store tomorrow and find some stuff. Here are the pictures

 

Not a whole lot of progress today, but was able to talk to a good carpenter friend that gave me some good advice about the wood bed and the clear I was using. Foam brush is the key.... and 1000 grit sand paper. So once this crap dries (3-4 times longer than what the can says, which is 1 day) then I can go through and sand down anything else that maybe an issue.

Here are some pictures of what I was doing while I waited.

 

Nice progress, your progress got me working on mine again..
A Eight ball?? I got one of them off my lowrider I am putting on my 5 speed shifter. Right now the clutch linkage has me puzzled. Old and new mix.

 

Thanks Dawai, I am glad you are working on your truck again. My grandpa is my inspiration for this build, he had bought a 1958 Chevy Apache brand new that he used when he was a logger, but a tree crushed it (he got over it, but he still talks about that truck). He loved cars and he remembered his 8 ball shifter. I really would like to take him for a ride in it soon

 

Well it doesn't look like I did much today, but I did get a lot completed. I got the top side of the bed sanded down and fixed a couple runs (several hours worth of work). Then flipped it over and got my razor blade out to cut off the clear that started to drip and dried. Then started my second coat on the bottom boards

The key for this clear coat to work is a foam brush, don't waste your time with anything else. The foam brush leveled that clear with absolutely no runs and it is smooth as glass.

While that was drying I hopped into the cab and worked on my hinge covers/kick panels. Since they were not drilled this was a massive pain in the ass, but I got it done. I am going to weld on some washers to the side facing out to make it look a little nicer than it does now, since I had to slot the holes. I also started taking apart the dash to clean up the ash tray, and see how bad everything else is. My next big project, other than tweaking the steering shafts, control arms, and flipping the tie rods over.. is the dash. So I was thinking about using something like a 1955 olds speaker/clock setup, but don't know how it will fit... I won't be using the top three holes above the radio, so that is just dead space and I would like for something to go there.

Anyway, here are the pictures

 

I have been following your build from the start. I have always wanted a 58/59 Apache.

I enjoy seeing your progress! Now that I have one, I am using your build for inspiration. Looks like you had some issues with the Cab corners. Good to see you got them sorted out.
How are your door bottoms? Any issues with those?
Been lookin at some patch panels, any recommendations?
Any recommendations for parts suppliers?

 

Thanks! I originally started this as a restoration log of sorts so I can look back at it some day, but have gained a little bit of a following. I am glad you enjoy it and can learn something from it.

The door bottom on the driver's side was trashed, but that side of the truck was also sideswept by a guard rail... so I replaced the bottom (twice), lower hinge bracket... but found that the upper was bad too from the accident, so I just opted for a new door instead of wasting anymore time on it.

The biggeset lesson I can convey to you is you get what you pay for... Especially the cab corners, get American made/Counterpart.. don't waste your time if it is anything else. You will still have to tweak some stuff, but not nearly as much as the Taiwan crap that they sell (Dii for example). Door bottoms are not for the beginner either, the panels they sell want to flatten out as soon as you peel them around the edges, which won't match the contour of the door.

The parts supplier I go with is classicparts.com out of Missouri. They always can answer your questions, are competitively priced and back their product (they sell Counterpart). They are better than truckandcarshop.com out of Orange, CA. The truckandcarshop's customer service is about the worst I have ever dealt with with any company... ever... They just don't have time for you and feel they can afford to treat customers like crap because they get so many calls or walk-ins. Oh... and they don't call you back for days, if ever lol. Plus their management is a joke and support the poor customer service.

 

Yeah...I'm a fan of classic too.....except for the following little ditty.... like you, I took on the project of the new door bottoms(inner and outer) as well as welding in new door hinge receivers in the inside portions. I did have a problem with their door hinge recievers as they came welded together all fucked up.....had to drill out the welds, align correctly then reweld back together before I could think about welding them into the inner patch panel. I did complain to classic about these parts and said they dont make 'em....they just sell 'em......great attitude

 

I couldn't agree more lol same problem and same complaint with the same attitude. Everything else has been good.


Back to the project. I dropped a lot of little parts off at the sand blasters and the passenger door off because I was tired of looking at. The rest of the parts were fender braces and dash parts or cab parts. Also I got 4 coats of clear on the bottom of the boards. Tomorrow I will flip them and take care of the tops and may work on the tailgate or other bed parts so this thing can slap together really easy. Pictures to come soon

 

Well, I flipped the boards for the last time... I will start putting on my final coats to the tops and sand it down to make sure everything is even. Then finish it off with a final. I should have this complete by the weekend, just in time to get my other parts back from the blasters. I need to buy some epoxy primer to shoot this truck all one color. I am sick of the 12 colors it is now...

I also cleaned up the garage a bit so I can shuffle more parts around so I can at least walk around... busy day, but didn't get anything accomplished!

 

Well I got my wiper nob figured out (two different hole diameters) I will try to install that sometime this week in the place of the choke cable (where I had my bright light indicator). Here is a picture of the crappy plastic nob and the nice chrome one to match everything else.

 

So Saturday was a bust... worst day ever.... So I spend about 4 hours trying to find a paint store that sold epoxy primer. Go to CarQuest and finally find some... good service, gave me a ton of stuff, but I guess it was too good to be true. After about one hour of getting ready to paint black epoxy primer with the air compressor, etc. Pop the lid open and it is white epoxy primer.... I can't use it... especially when the truck is already red, black, gray, and surface rust. So I go to put the door back inside after it has been blasted since I can't paint it. I step on my shop broom... break it in half... in the same motion that hits the passenger fender that I have sitting on the ground and it comes flying over and puts a big crease in it and also this pushes me and the door I am carrying into the steel wheels that I have sitting on the ground, which then puts a dent into the door... then the cherry on top was when the air compressor catches my brand new $50 shorts and tears a huge hole in them...

I proceeded to go inside and get wasted... Fast forward to today.. Have a hangover... then decide to work on the bed sides and front bed panel.. The bed sides angle strip was coming loose from the tack welds so I made sure . its not going to do it again. Here is what I have:

 

All I need to do now is scuff and shoot....

More pictures:

 

Damn man! Sounds like you had a tough day. Sometimes you've just got to walk away and come back again later. You'll win in the end.

 

No Joke man lol. I got it today though

 

So The last couple pictures of the other bed side getting fixed... not much to it, but 15 minutes of work.

Now.... the tailgate.... what a piece of... work. So this looks like it is going to be a project that is going to take SEVERAL days lol. No fun.... But I think it will be nice in the end, so I will start tackling this after I get the bed back together and the garage cleaned up from a thousand parts being everywhere.

I hate when other people do crappy work that I have to fix....

 

So it looks like someone put something between the tailgate and the bed and then tried to close it and crunched it... which then popped the welds... I will have a little work into this one before it is anywhere decent... Most of it is just cutting old welds and making it look nice again, not too much of a problem for me I don't think.

 

That looks pretty good, compared to what I have to work with!

 

Thanks! At least yours is a fleet side, seems to be a lot easier instead of fenders and stuff, I maybe wrong. Start posting more for crying out loud!

 

I will start a build thread one of these days. It will be a long term (slow) project.
I need to finish some things on my Wildcat first!

 

for some reason i can't post pics on here of my 59 fleetside. they may be too big, but not sure how to resize. would like to start a thread of my build so i can get ideas and criticisms. any help on pics would be great.

 

get photobucket and copy the http:// address, then you use the little icon that looks like mountains with a sun. The end

 

alright so I had a 60 hour work week this week and I was beat, but that didn't stop me from picking up the door from the blasters and the feeble attempt to get it into primer at dusk. This was a joke really because every insect known to humanity decided it wanted to nose dive right into the epoxy, including a 3 inch long cockroach that looked like it came from Madagascar. I finally got a decent primer job on the front (I was really proud of it) and this big ass cockroach lands right in the middle... then proceeds to dance around on it, roll around in it and mock me in general... I was not pleased.

So I blew him off the door with the paint gun air pressure and proceeded to paint him into the ground for my revenge. I would have taken a picture of the cocoon of paint, but I then drove my car over him to make sure he was dead...

I thought it was okay, but low and behold this thing totally jacked up my epoxy job on the front, so in my roachrage I just layered it on thick in the area so I could sand it off later. Here is the result of my night paint job without any light used except lights that were 30 feet away.